ICPC Ignores FOI Inquiry On Hospital Contract Fraud

Despite invoking the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has failed to provide the information and details of the name of the hospital or persons involved in a contract scam, in which an unnamed hospital was paid for five times without being built.

The chairman of ICPC, Dr Musa Aliyu, said in February that the commission had uncovered massive corruption, where some (unnamed) government officials made 100 per cent payment for a hospital project that had never been built.

The ICPC chairman said the most troubling part of the corruption was that the officials ensured the same project was paid for multiple times without it ever being built.

However, when LEADERSHIP tried to get the ICPC chairman to name the hospital, he declined.
Several inquiries, calls, discussions, and text messages were made to the ICPC to get details of the hospital contract, but they didn’t yield any results.

On April 14, LEADERSHIP, in a letter to the ICPC chairman, invoked the FOI Act and demanded the details of the contract; however, the commission and its chairman failed to do so.
A reminder was written to the ICPC chairman on May 7, and the demand was also declined as the ICPC, not the chairman, did not respond to the letters.

Also, on April 3, at the ICPC’s stakeholders’ meeting on ACPP-LG, the ICPC was asked to elaborate on the hospital contract issue and name those involved; the chairman declined to comment.
However, a source at the ICPC told LEADERSHIP that some details were unnecessary for the public to know since the anti-graft agency was working to recover the funds.

The source said the ICPC had traced the suspects involved in such crimes and worked seriously to recover all funds paid for the project.

Dr Aliyu recently said that the above case was only one of the many instances of endemic corruption in the country and that it must not be allowed to continue.

The ICPC violated the FOI Act in this case as it was obligated to respond to the enquiry by LEADERSHIP within seven working days of receiving the request.

The Act clearly states that any request not actioned within the prescribed timeframe will be deemed a denial, and any wrongful denial of a request makes the defaulting officer and/or institution liable to a fine of N500,000.